I'm obviously not most people, then. I'd love to be James Bond! The women! The gadgets! The great suits! The women! Killing people with strange accents! Drinking on the job! The women!

Man, did I mention the women?

I'm not sure if I read it on CHUD or somewhere else, but an amusing and truthful comment was made about Bond as wish fulfillment after the release of Casino Royale. The poster said that the old days of Connery and Moore were definitely the stuff that dreams were made of: every guy wants to be irresistible to gorgeous women and be able to bed them constantly regardless of the punishing wave of daily drinking, smoking, fighting, etc. But the poster said the world of Craig's Bond scared the shit out of him, what with the sudden knife wrestling in public places, getting poisoned, getting your balls half beat off, and so on. Craig's Bond takes damage, both physically and psychologically. (And on that note, I wonder if they will try to keep the Skyfall scars in continuity during the next Craig films.)

And it's that damage that makes me attached to him in a way that I never could be with previous incarnations of the character. He was always so cool that I felt like I was being kept at arm's length from him. Now, I just want to give the guy a hug and a martini.

A[quote name="agracru" url="/community/t/145354/skyfall-post-release/1000#post_3443321"]Go back to the scene where they first reconnect after Bond returns to MI6. Forget the dialogue. That's not a person who is defined only by self-confidence. She's clearly shaken, and I think-- outside the field, where, as I said, she has no choice but to be confident-- it gives her pathos.

That's why I think Harris is so great here. She gives a performance that adds much more beyond her lines. If she doesn't keep up appearances in future installments, it'll be a waste.
[/quote]

Noooooooo, that was the very scene that first sent me on this jag. It was the scene where the film started to lose me a little precisely because her performance was lacking in that way. She's not shaken. She's not even stirred. And it stood out to me because that Craig is so damn good at playing someone who is shaken and stirred but playing the stiff upper lip that her failure is in stark relief.

To me both her performance and Wishaw's felt more on the level of a weekly turnaround show like Spooks or CSI or something than characters worthy of a feature film. Berenice Marlohe had the opposite problem, in that she overplayed her flustered-while-trying-to-be-cool moment to an almost comical level.

God Daniel Craig is great though.

[quote name="Doc Phibes" url="/community/t/145354/skyfall-post-release/1000#post_3443355"]It's not a question of whether or not Eve can handle herself in the field and enjoy it. Clearly, she has the skills and the zeal. The issue is whether she can instantly follow orders and commit to the darker, messier aspects of special ops missions, such as firing upon a fellow agent. There was no risk of that presented in the casino. But Eve knows that if she stays in the field, she's going to have to make nasty decisions like that again. It's the sort of thing Bond can do (like leaving the other agent to bleed to death) even though he hates it.[/quote]

"There was no risk of that presented in the casino" - and that's at the core of the film's failure to properly play out Moneypenny's arc. Everyone knows Maverick has to have the moment where he flies through the jet wash again so he can get re-freaked out and ask Goose's ghost to talk to him while he looks at the dog tags.

But Skyfall doesn't pull that off so it has to tell when it should have showed. That's all I ask. Why can't every movie be Top Gun?

If this movie's taught me anything, it's that if you have a gun pointed at the villain while he's on a ladder, order him to climb down the ladder. If he reaches into his pocket, shoot him. It might be a gun, or a radio detonator for a bomb nearby that will cause a subway train to fall on you. If he pulls out a radio detonator for a bomb nearby that will cause a subway train to fall on you, don't let him make an ironic callback to something you said to him earlier. Shoot him. If a bomb goes out with no apparent effect, shoot him. Don't keep him alive to ask "Hey, what was with that bomb for seemingly no reason? Is a subway train about to fall on me?" Just shoot him.

A[quote name="HarleyQuinn22" url="/community/t/145354/skyfall-post-release/1050#post_3443560"]And it's that damage that makes me attached to him in a way that I never could be with previous incarnations of the character. He was always so cool that I felt like I was being kept at arm's length from him. Now, I just want to give the guy a hug and a martini.
[/quote]
In a shower of course after he plays some cards... ...or in fire after you killed the man that killed your father?

While Death Proof is a good movie with the greatest car chase ever, Skyfall is one of the the best Bond movies ever! Also the Bond series is the greatest movie franchise ever! Just because I wrote this on my eight PBR doesn't mean it isn't true.

While Death Proof is a good movie with the greatest car chase ever, Skyfall is one of the the best Bond movies ever! Also the Bond series is the greatest movie franchise ever! Just because I wrote this on my eight PBR doesn't mean it isn't true.

Dude. Its called Bullitt (1968). Look it up. Even Tarantino would readily admit that Steve Mc-fucking-Queen takes this prize.

Holy shit, this should go in the "things you just realized about movies" thread, but Peter Yeats, director of Bullitt, eventually directed Krull and Night of the Comet. That's awesome!

I got an early copy of the Blu-ray. Picture and sound quality are both sublime. This disc will shoot to the top of your system demo pile. The extras are so-so. There's plenty of interesting facts revealed about the production, but they're sandwiched between long stretches of predictable bullshit promotional emptiness. I would've liked to have seen Bardem's camera test, instead of just hearing about how amazing it was. Same goes for the model of the Shanghai skyscraper set that they filmed with a lipstick cam as a test... let's see that shit!

Whatever. What's good is that we're all going to be watching this Blu-ray until our eyes fall out. Gorge yourselves on these shots!

I got an early copy of the Blu-ray. Picture and sound quality are both sublime. This disc will shoot to the top of your system demo pile. The extras are so-so. There's plenty of interesting facts revealed about the production, but they're sandwiched between long stretches of predictable bullshit promotional emptiness. I would've liked to have seen Bardem's camera test, instead of just hearing about how amazing it was. Same goes for the model of the Shanghai skyscraper set that they filmed with a lipstick cam as a test... let's see that shit!

Whatever. What's good is that we're all going to be watching this Blu-ray until our eyes fall out. Gorge yourselves on these shots!

This was pretty awesome. My favorite Bond film since Connery's heyday.

Deakins is the MVP here (surprise surprise.) The film is just so vivid, it was impossible to not be held in the film's sway, even as some of the one liners were falling flat. And yeah, there's some very convenient/silly plotting, but, really, who cares? At this point, while I acknowledge and appreciate big actiony type films that somehow manage to avoid silly plots, if I was going to let it ruin my enjoyment of the genre I'm afraid I'd just have to stay away entirely.

The Severine scene left a bad taste in my mouth, but the more I thought about it, the more it worked for me. This is a world where people are disposable. Not just the world of espionage, but the world of Bond himself. I think that Bond's "last rat standing" quip wasn't just a line. The movie is embracing the idea that in some ways he's not really a good person. There are a couple instances where he could have potentially saved someone, and didn't for the good of the mission. I'm not saying he could have necessarily saved Severine, and I don't think we're supposed to think that, but the unceremonious way she was dispatched seemed to me a deliberate choice by Mendes. Even the way she was standing in the ruins, almost like a ritual sacrifice.

A couple other things that tie into that. Bond's completely unsentimental about his ancestral home being destroyed, but when his vintage Aston Martin bites the dust, then he gets mad. And, at the end, when Fiennes asks if he's ready to serve, and Bond repeats, for emphasis "with pleasure." This movie understands just how much Bond can be seen as a godless character that exists in a world where morality is gray at best. He does things "For England" because, to him, the ceiling doesn't go any higher than that. He takes pleasure in luxury, and killing, because what else is there? He leaves you "shaken, not stirred."

I haven't even mentioned Bardem, but I'm sure he's been talked up to death. He's so good. I could see the teeth scene becoming iconic... even with the obvious parallel to Lecter in the "plastic display cage." That's how good he was in it. He made it his own. Such a disturbing image. And I thought my grandpa's dentures sitting in a glass on the nightstand was nightmare fuel.

Gawd, I love this movie. It's even better the second viewing. Got the bluray/DVD/digi for my boyfriend as a Valentines Day gift, but it's really for me. Heh. I got him a bottle of his favorite cognac, he can have that anyways.

This movie is well scripted/directed/edited and yes, the look of it all. So good.

Plays even better on Blu Ray, and this time Bardem won me over completely. His story reminded me of Hugo Drax in the novel Moonraker. Not that they bear any similarity, but because is both cases the villain is captured by the enemy, fakes their own death or is presumed dead, and surreptitiously build an organization intended to destroy their enemy. (M in Silva's case, England itself in Drax's).

Also caught Silva's real name this time!

It is really amazing how this film walks a fine line between "Grim N Gritty" and "Roger Moore Era Hijinks". As I was grooving to the Komodo Dragon sequence I thought of Avengers and Dark Knight Rises, and how their tone compares to SkyFall. Avengers is more light and fluffy, while TDKR goes overboard on the mock profundity. And SkyFall is right in the middle. That's some kind of magic film making right there.

Quote:It is really amazing how this film walks a fine line between "Grim B Gritty" and "Roger Moore Era Hijinks". As I was grooving to the Komodo Dragon sequence I thought of Avengers and Dark Knight Rises, and how their tone compares to SkyFall. Avengers is more light and fluffy, while TDKR goes overboard on the mock profundity. And SkyFall is right in the middle. That's some kind of magic film making right there.

And it's the perfect tone I always thought Bond 23 should have after Quantum of Solace, I'm happy it turned out that way.